by Jan Coffey
When the doctors had discharged her from the hospital two days ago, their directions were clear. Take her home and say your final goodbye.
This morning, she could see Christina was already starved for air, struggling to breathe. Her daughter’s eyes turned from the television to her. She knew. A toddler, not old enough to understand, not strong enough to survive, was judging her. Guilt dragged its sharp claws along Elizabeth’s skin, and bitterness threatened to choke her. The universe was punishing her.
She had known for months what the eventual outcome would be, and it ripped her heart out. She did everything she could until she couldn’t take it any longer. When it became clear that Christina’s health was continuing to fail, she prepared herself for the inevitable. Still, she couldn’t watch her child die.
“I go?” Tiam stood up.
“Yes. You go, my love,” Elizabeth said to her. “Soon.”
There wasn’t enough air in the apartment for her to breathe. Back in the bedroom, she looked out the window for the car service. The driver wasn’t here yet.
“I still think you should try to get visas for Zari and Tiam,” Patricia said. “Take them both back with you to the US. You can afford it.”
Her friend had no idea what Elizabeth could afford. Things weren’t as they seemed.
“Do you think I haven’t already looked into it?” She was angry that Patricia would bring this up again. She worked for the embassy. She knew the law, the red tape that was involved. “Zari is an undocumented Kurdish refugee. Tiam doesn’t even have a birth certificate. They entered this country illegally. You know how our government works. They won’t issue them visas.”
Patricia’s suggestion was impossible, and Elizabeth needed to get out. For two months, she’d been planning for this. When she applied for a US passport for Christina, she substituted Tiam’s baby picture. No paper-pusher in any airport would question a mother and child. But it didn’t hurt that she carried credentials connecting her to the US State Department.
Elizabeth had to do this, to go and live her life. At the age of forty-four, she was too old to get pregnant again. And even if she did, there was no saying if her next child would be born with the same disease. She’d thought everything through. She knew what she was doing. There was no other way.
“You and I don’t work for the same people. You have far better connections. Someone must owe you a favor.” Patricia wasn’t giving up.
“No one is willing to stick their neck out to give papers to a Kurdish woman and her baby. No, it’s not happening.”
Her friend had no idea about Elizabeth’s recent trouble. No one at the Agency wanted anything to do with her. She’d been privately reprimanded and “retired.” Langley had frozen her bank accounts and confiscated nearly everything for the deals she’d made on her own. But the news was being kept under wraps. As far as her colleagues were concerned, her departure was voluntary. She was going back to the US to devote her attention to raising her daughter. The truth was that she was returning to US to start again, get a job, and find a way to raise a baby. A healthy baby.
She lined up her suitcases by the end of the bed.
“Then at least talk to Zari. She has no future in Ankara—nothing more than being someone’s servant. You’re a fairy godmother. You’re giving Tiam a future that she could never have with her mother. Get her blessing and adopt the child.”
“Adoption takes months, sometimes years. Besides, that woman has been working for me for nearly two years. I know her. She’ll never agree.”
“She’s still a mother. My heart goes out to her.”
“Your heart should go out to me. I’ve given you fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand,” she repeated, pointing a finger at Patricia. “That is enough to pay the baby’s expenses and give Zari a handout, and still leave plenty for you.”
That money was nearly everything she had left. And she only had it because it was cash the Agency hadn’t found.
The older woman looked at her feet.
“Are you backing out on me now at the last minute?”
“No,” Patricia said feebly. “I need the money.”
“Then help me. Put her jacket on.”
Elizabeth rolled the suitcases to the front door of the apartment and dropped her purse and the diaper bag next to them. The intercom from the front door buzzed, and a momentary panic shot through her. She looked at the clock. It was too early for Zari to be back. She pressed the intercom. The car service had arrived.
She opened the apartment door and waited for the driver to come up and get her luggage. Her gaze fell on the children. As Patricia wrestled Tiam into the jacket, the excited toddler jumped up and down. Beside them, Christina sat quietly and watched her playmate.
“Do you want to know when…when it happens? Should I notify you?”
From the first day, waiting helplessly for the baby to take her first breath, Elizabeth had dreaded the thought of Christina’s death. For eighteen months, that horrible feeling had never left her. Each doctor’s visit was laced with disappointing news. The midnight trips to the emergency room, the pacing the corridors, the discussions with experts here and over the phone to the US never made a difference. The answer was always the same.
The prognosis is terminal. Respiratory and digestive failure is imminent. Patient survival is unlikely...
And then there was this last hospital stay.
It is time, Ms. Hall. There is nothing more to be done.
Elizabeth turned to her friend, still waiting for an answer. “No. Don’t contact me. It’s better that way.”
The driver appeared at the door, and Elizabeth had him take her luggage downstairs. Once the man’s footsteps died away, she crouched before her daughter.
“So this is it. The end. Can I have a hug?”
Christina didn’t have the strength to raise her arms. Elizabeth picked up her daughter one last time but stopped as a breath hissed out of the small, congested lungs. The child stared at her from beneath long lashes. She had her large blue eyes, her soft skin, her quivering chin. Even in temperament, she was Elizabeth’s daughter.
This was too much for her. It was too much for anyone. Something was dying inside her, and if she didn’t go now, Elizabeth didn’t know if she ever would. She thought of what she was leaving here—a dying child, a ruined career, an empty bank account. And she thought of what the future offered in America—a healthy baby and endless possibilities.
She straightened up, whispering, “Goodbye.”
Turning away, she scooped Tiam into her arms and brushed a kiss on Patricia’s cheek. “You do understand that I don’t want to hear a word from you…ever again.”
Without another glance backward, Elizabeth went out the door and down to the street.
35
Zari
Then
Zari knew something was wrong the moment she walked into the apartment. Elizabeth’s friend was sitting in a rocking chair and watching the news, and the volume was too loud for the baby sleeping on her lap. Patricia Nicholls visited often, and she was always chatty and easy to talk to. But today she didn’t look up. She said nothing in response to Zari’s greeting.
“My Tiam is sleeping?”
Again she received no answer. Zari carried the groceries into the kitchen and put the bags on the counter. It struck her as odd that the woman barely acknowledged her presence. She was never like this.
The errands Elizabeth had given her today had taken her across Ankara to a distant neighborhood. She had to take three different buses to drop off two of her employer’s winter coats at a specific dry cleaner. It was not the one they normally used. After that stop, Zari had a long list of things to buy at an American grocery store in the same neighborhood. She took packages of overpriced prepared foods and the cans of pumpkin, black beans, and cranberry jelly—whatever that was—out of the bags. This was a waste of time and money. The food she cooked on a daily basis for Elizabeth and herself and the girls didn’t use these i
ngredients, and Zari knew her dinners were far healthier.
Leaving everything on the counter, she went to check on Tiam. Her baby was a light sleeper, and the television was too loud. The room she and Tiam shared opened off a hallway leading from the back of the kitchen.
The door was closed. She pushed it open slightly and peeked inside. There was no crib; she and her daughter shared the same bed. But the baby wasn’t there. Zari went to Elizabeth’s room. Her employer occasionally had the girls take their naps on her bed.
Looking in from the doorway, she saw immediately that Tiam wasn’t there either. Zari’s stomach clenched. Clothes were scattered carelessly on the chair and on the bed. Shoes lay where they’d been thrown, along a wall and in the corner by a window. Before she left to run her errands, Zari had made the bed and tidied the room. And Elizabeth wasn’t a messy person. Everything had a place.
The closet door was open. Empty hangers dangled from the closet pole and lay on the floor. Elizabeth’s jewelry box lay on its side next to the bed. Its drawers had been pulled out. Zari picked it up. The box was empty.
“Ms. Hall?” she called out, but no one answered.
She glanced at the closet again and paused, perplexed. Elizabeth stored her suitcases on the shelves. But they were both missing.
“Ms. Hall?” she called louder, hurrying through the hallways to the living room. “Tiam?”
The single stroller and the double stroller stood against the wall. Elizabeth never took the children out without them.
“Mrs. Nicholls, where is Ms. Hall. Where is Tiam?”
The older woman didn’t answer. Her attention remained glued to the television screen. Zari’s heart raced, and cold waves of fear washed down her spine.
Patricia Nicholls was divorced. She’d never had children of her own. Zari had heard Elizabeth say numerous times that she would never leave either of the girls alone with her. Her friend didn’t know the first thing about what to do with a baby.
“Did something happen, ma’am?”
Babies got hurt all the time. Maybe Tiam fell and needed to be taken to the doctor. What if she choked on something? Bumped her head. Elizabeth kept her sleeping pills next to the bed. What if she took them? What if she’d been poisoned?
But what about the missing suitcases and the jewelry?
“Where is Ms. Hall?” she asked sharply. “Mrs. Nicholls, I need to speak with her.”
The woman didn’t look up. Zari switched off the television and stood in front of it, facing her.
“My daughter Tiam…where is she?”
Patricia glanced at the clock first before turning her attention to Zari. The baby woke up with a start at that very moment, wailing.
“Hush. Hush, little one. Come here.”
She took her out of the woman’s arms, caressed her back and whispered in her ear until the child dozed off on her shoulder.
“Ms. Hall. Tiam. Where are they?”
Mrs. Nicholls was again studying the clock on the wall. Something was seriously wrong. Zari’s stomach lurched.
“For the love of Allah, you’re killing me, ma’am. Please talk to me.”
The woman finally looked at her. “I think you should sit down.”
“I can’t sit down. Where is my baby?”
“Do you know how lucky your child is? How fortunate?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t want you to tell me. But I do want you to tell me where Ms. Hall has gone and when is she coming back?”
“Do you know the Cinderella story?”
“Yes, it’s a cartoon. Please answer me.”
“It is a story of a girl rising from rags to riches.”
“I don’t care. I want my child.” Panic drove her pitch higher every time she spoke. If it weren’t for the baby in her arms, Zari was angry enough to shake the other woman. “Where is she? What has happened to her?”
Christina cried out again, and Zari rocked her from side to side. Her heart was ready to explode. She kept thinking of the missing suitcases and clothes, the empty jewelry box.
A horrible, horrible thought materialized in her brain, and a chasm opened before her.
Elizabeth spent more time with Tiam than with her own daughter. How many times had their conversation begun harmlessly only to turn into things that made Zari wonder if she was being teased or not?
Tiam likes me better than you.
Can she sleep in the bed with me tonight?
Can I have her?
How much to buy her?
We’ll just swap the babies, Christina for Tiam. What do you say?
“No!” The anguished cry was directed at herself. Her imagination was running wild. This couldn’t be happening.
“Elizabeth will give Tiam the best life any child could dream of. A privileged life. A good home. A good education. Money. There isn’t a thing your daughter will be wanting for in her life. Do you know what other refugees in your situation would do for this opportunity? Do you know how lucky Tiam is?”
The blood ran out of her body, and Zari’s vision wavered. She’d stepped into a nightmare.
“She can’t just take my baby. She can’t walk away with another woman’s child.”
“She’s taking her to America.”
Zari gaped at her in disbelief.
“America!” Patricia said again, as if it were Jannah. Paradise.
Blind panic seized her by the throat. She stumbled toward the phone. “I’ll call the police. I’ll report her. I’ll tell them what she’s doing. She’s a thief. A criminal. They’ll stop her.”
Zari picked up the phone, but before she could dial, Patricia was beside her, wrenching the handset out of her grasp and slamming it down.
“You will not call anyone,” she snapped. “You will not tell anyone. If you so much as breathe a word of this, she’ll hand you over to the Turkish police.”
“She can’t steal my baby.” Tears rushed down Zari’s cheeks, as she tried to dial again.
Patricia tore the phone cord out of the wall. “Do not forget who you are. You are a bloody nobody. You don’t exist. You have no rights whatsoever. Elizabeth will destroy you. And I’m not only talking about deportation. She’ll have you charged with crimes. She’ll say you’re a thief. That you stole from her. It’ll be her word against yours. No one will believe you. They’ll put you in jail.”
“But why?” Zari cried. “Why is she doing this? Didn’t I serve her? Wasn’t I honest? Didn’t I take care of this child—her child—like she was my own?”
Christina’s cries turned into gasps. Zari clapped the baby repeatedly on the back until she coughed and managed to catch her breath.
“You’re being hysterical. I can’t deal with you right now.” Patricia walked away and picked up her purse from the chair. “I’ll come back tomorrow after you’ve calmed down. We’ll see what needs to be done then.”
Zari stood in the middle of the living room, discarded, dismissed, forgotten. Tears blurred her vision as she watched the other woman go out the door. Christina made a soft sound, and Zari looked down at the innocent child in her arms.
We’ll just swap the babies. Those words weren’t spoken in jest. She meant them.
“And you, my love? What is going to happen to you?”
Zari tried to absorb the reality she was facing. Her precious child was gone. A woman she’d trusted had taken Tiam and run away. Tears ran down her cheeks. Only a monster could do such a thing. Only a twisted and heartless monster.
A thought came to her. She saw a printout this morning on the kitchen counter. A hotel reservation in Istanbul.
Her Tiam was there. She must be.
Zari had to go after her.
Part XI
“Take this,” he said, “and if, by gracious heaven,
A daughter for your solace should be given,
Let it among her ringlets be displayed,
And joy and honor will await the maid.”
—Ferdowsi
36
&nb
sp; Christina
It’s cold and damp in my cell, and I’ve lost all sense of time. Maybe I’ve been here for hours, but I’m not sure. There’s no way of knowing if Kyle and Elizabeth even realize I’ve gone missing.
Loud, angry voices reach me from the other room. Two men are arguing in Turkish. A third person is trying to interject, but he’s having no success at all in calming the others.
The only thing I do know is that my arms are numb from the shoulder sockets down. I try to move them and flex the muscles, but pins and needles is the best response I can get. And regardless of how frequently I shift my weight on the rug, the sharp cramp in my hip won’t go away. No one has checked on me since they dumped me here.
In every abduction film I’ve ever seen, the villains take a picture or a video and use it to get their ransom. Or they have the kidnap victim talk to their family on the phone. None of that has happened here. Maybe these men haven’t watched the same movies.
Something crashes against the door, setting my already taut nerves on edge. It sounds like a thrown chair. One man’s voice, loud and harsh, silences the others. He’s right outside my door. It’s obvious now that nothing has happened because they’d been waiting for the big boss to arrive. If this is the guy, he certainly doesn’t sound happy.
A bolt is pulled back, scraping metal against metal. Pushing myself upright and sitting tall, I stare at the door, ready to face whoever is coming in. No begging for my life. No cowering or crying or carrying on. If they’re going to kill me, they’ll do it, and no amount of drama from me will make any difference. Once again, my tremendous expertise comes from a thousand police shows.
The door squeaks open, giving me a glimpse of the room. Two younger men are standing by a table, squabbling in low voices. Their hands are gesturing angrily in every direction, and one of them jerks a thumb toward my door just as it closes.